Zigbee In A Nutshell; Mesh Networking - Digi XBee Zigbee Mesh Kit User Manual

Zigbee in a nutshell

Zigbee is an open global standard for low-power, low-cost, low-data-rate, wireless mesh networking
based on the IEEE 802.15.4 standard. It represents a network layer above the 802.15.4 layers to
support advanced mesh routing capabilities. The Zigbee specification is developed by a growing
consortium of companies that make up the Zigbee Alliance. The Alliance is made up of over 300
members, including semiconductor, module, stack, and software developers.
Through its mesh and routing capabilities, Zigbee allows the transmission of data over long distances
by passing the data through a mesh network of intermediate nodes to reach more distant nodes.
Transmission distance ranges from 1200 to 3200 line-of-sight meters (5280 to 10560 feet). Zigbee
supports multiple network topologies such as point-to-point, point-to-multipoint, and mesh networks
and allows up to 65,000 nodes per network.
Zigbee is designed to provide the following features:
High reliability
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Low power consumption
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Low cost
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High security
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Simple protocol, global implementation
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Mesh networking

A mesh network is a topology in which each node in the network is connected to other nodes around
it. Each node cooperates in the transmission of information. Mesh networking provides three
important benefits:
Routing. With this technique, the message is propagated along a path by hopping from node to
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node until it reaches its final destination.
Ad-hoc network creation. This is an automated process that creates an entire network of
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nodes on the fly, without any human intervention.
Self-healing. This process automatically figures out if one or more nodes on the network is
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missing and reconfigures the network to repair any broken routes.
XBee® Zigbee® Mesh Kit
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